The Salt Lake Tribune/September 16, 2009

By Rosemary Winters

Even as a 3-year-old, Russ Baker-Gorringe sensed he was different from
the other boys he watched playing kick the can in the street.

But, as a Mormon, he grew up believing that faith could heal what he
later realized he was feeling: He was gay. He served a mission,
married a "beautiful" woman in an LDS temple and had four children.

"I knew I was attracted to men," Baker-Gorringe says. "My core belief,
in every step I took in my church activities, was that there was
something wrong with me. ... But with God all things are possible, and
this could be fixed."

Experiences like his will be discussed at two conferences this weekend
held by Evergreen International and Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian
Mormons. Both groups work to support Latter-day Saints who experience
same-sex attraction, but they vary widely in their approaches.

Evergreen, which offers referrals to therapists, aims to help people
"overcome homosexual behavior" and "diminish same-sex attraction."
Affirmation supports Mormons - active and former members of the faith
- in being openly gay, calling their sexual orientation a "special
gift from God."

Last month, the American Psychological Association passed a resolution
advising mental health professionals against telling their clients
they can change their sexual orientation through therapy or other
treatments. No solid evidence exists that such efforts work, the APA
concluded, and some studies suggest the potential for harm.

But the organization acknowledged the role that religion often plays
in one's desire to pursue sexual-orientation change. An APA task force
recommended that therapists "respect the client's religious beliefs"
and help him or her "consider possibilities for a religiously and
spiritually meaningful and rewarding life." Such possibilities could
include celibacy or switching churches.

Baker-Gorringe, 55, was one of Evergreen's first board members after
its creation 20 years ago. The Salt Lake City resident helped pen the
group's initial mission statement. In a way, he says, the organization
was a "godsend," because he finally learned he was not alone.

"There were others who had felt this way their whole life - just like
me," recalls Baker-Gorringe, who served in an LDS bishopric and a
stake presidency. "I had felt so long like I was the only Latter-day
Saint that must have to deal with this."

But even with that support and the help of a "very understanding" wife
and children, Baker-Gorringe became severely depressed when his
continued efforts to change - including through prayer, scripture
study and obedience to LDS teachings - did not work.

"I always felt I was never quite good enough," Baker-Gorringe says. "I
felt like I had the faith required for the miracle - but was being
denied the miracle."

A decade ago, he was hiking with his wife and four kids in Glacier
National Park and decided to take his own life. He wanted it to look
like an accident to spare his children the sorrow of a suicide.

He stood on a rope bridge, strung above a deep ravine, and swung one
leg over. Gazing at the backs of his family, hiking ahead of him, he
bid a silent farewell. In that moment, his then-14-year-old daughter,
Emily, turned around. She ran to her father and pulled him away from
the edge.

"I saw the look on his face, and I knew he was going to do it," Emily
Fuchs, now 24, says. "I told him, 'Dad, I don't care that you're gay.
I think you're exactly how you're supposed to be. I love you.' "

Baker-Gorringe began to question some of his beliefs about
homosexuality. Ultimately, he and his wife decided to divorce.

He met his partner, Joe Baker, a few years later. The two married in a
religious ceremony at Holladay United Church of Christ - a
congregation that Baker-Gorringe left the LDS Church to join - in
2005. Fuchs and her three siblings walked their father down the aisle.
They, too, left the LDS Church, Baker-Gorringe says, after feeling
like their dad was stigmatized and watching their grandparents disown
him.

The Baker-Gorringes - Russ and Joe share a hyphenated last name -
received a state-recognized marriage license in pre-Proposition 8
California in 2008.

"I know what joy is now," Russ Baker-Gorringe says. "I just thank God
that my daughter turned around ... or I wouldn't be here. I would
never have come to a point of peace with who I am."

The LDS Church has softened its stance on homosexuality in recent
years. It teaches that same-sex attraction is not a sin, only acting
on it is. Sex is to be reserved solely for those in a heterosexual
marriage. (The church strongly opposes gay marriage.) Parents should
not be blamed if their kids are gay.

The church no longer officially advises that someone with same-sex
attraction should marry someone of the other sex. Baker-Gorringe
received that counsel from multiple priesthood leaders when he
returned from his LDS mission in Indiana.

"Marriage is not an all-purpose solution," Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of
the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, writes in a 2007 Ensign article.
Some "attempts have resulted in broken hearts and broken homes."

Still, David Melson, executive director of Affirmation, says "there's
no consistency" in the way the guidelines are implemented by lay
clergy in LDS congregations. Some still are advising marriage to gay
members, he says, or even telling parents to kick their gay kids out
of their homes so as not to "contaminate" siblings.

"The church has done tremendous damage to families, to individuals,"
Melson says. "The breaking up of families, the homelessness, the
suicide has to end. We would like to work with the church to do that,
but, with them or without them, we would like to make an effort to end
the damage now."

Evergreen, executive director David Pruden says, tries to help Mormons
with "unwanted" same-sex attractions live "lives that are consistent
with gospel principles," but it does not encourage them to get
married. As many as 40 percent of adults who contact Evergreen seeking
help with same-sex attraction, Pruden says, already are married to
someone of the other sex.

"Obviously," Pruden says, "a person shouldn't get married until they
are ready to live in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship in a
healthy way."

But his group, which will feature at its conference one of the
nation's leading advocates for so-called "reparative therapy," does
believe that sexual orientation can "change," Pruden says.

Salt Lake City resident Rebekah Mohr says Evergreen helped her
"diminish" her same-sex attraction. A mother of two, she at one time
considered leaving her husband.

But her belief in the LDS Church, ultimately, led her to stick with
her marriage. She has a "strong testimony," she says, of the church's
teachings that families - led by one man and one woman - can live
together in the eternities.

Mohr, 42, says therapy that taught her "coping skills" and "life
skills" helped. She also leaned on a friend she met at Evergreen.

"I was fortunate enough to diminish [feelings of same-sex attraction]
to a point that it's not a bother any more," Mohr says. "I understand
that some people can't get that far."

Lisa Diamond, a psychology professor and researcher at the University
of Utah, says many women experience "fluidity" in their attractions to
men and women - falling in love with the person, not the gender -
but their underlying sexual orientations don't change.

Treatments that purport to change someone's orientation or
attractions, she says, raise concerns about truth in advertising.

"Most accredited psychologists don't approve of such therapies,"
Diamond says. "There's a lot of concern that people are still being
given the message that they can change their orientation through these
sorts of techniques when there's really no evidence that that's true."

The "longstanding consensus" of the behavioral and social sciences,
the APA reports, is that homosexuality is a "normal and positive
variation of human sexual orientation."

For Fuchs, seeing her father finally fall in love has been the "most
healing thing" since she watched him nearly take his own life. For
months after the incident, she was like a "leech," clinging to her
father, even checking on him in his sleep to ensure he was OK. She
told herself it was her responsibility to keep him alive.

She's happy her mom has remarried, too.

"They can finally have the love they're supposed to have," she says.
"My mom and my dad."

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